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Science Fiction and the Ecological Conscience

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Science Fiction and the Ecological Conscience SCIENCE FICTION AND THE ECOLOGICAL CONSCIENCE By ERIC OTTO A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2006 Copyright 2006 by Eric Otto This is for Tricia and Beatrice ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My dissertation chair, Andrew Gordon, has enthusiastically backed my ideas and provided extensive commentary on drafts of this study, and for that I thank him. I also thank Sid Dobrin, Bron Taylor, and Phil Wegner for the time and effort they put into working on my dissertation committee. I appreciate the encouraging words of my colleagues at Florida Gulf Coast University and thank them for welcoming me into their family. I thank my mom, Sandy, and my dad, Joe, for their support over the years and also extend this thanks to my sister, Tracy, and my brothers, Joey, Casey, Ricky, and Chad. Finally, and for so many reasons, I thank my wife, Tricia, and my daughter, Beatrice. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 2 SCIENCE FICTION AND THE ECOLOGICAL CONSCIENCE..............................6 The Ecological Conscience...........................................................................................8 Why Science Fiction?.................................................................................................12 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................20 3 THE SUBVERSIVE SUBJECT OF ECOLOGY.......................................................23 Subversive Ecology in Early Science Fiction: Some Considerations .......................28 Last and First Men ..............................................................................................30 “Twilight”............................................................................................................34 Earth Abides ........................................................................................................38 Dune ....................................................................................................................47 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................56 4 ECOTOPIA, DYS(ECO)TOPIA, AND THE VISIONS OF DEEP ECOLOGY.......58 Deep Ecology, Ecotopia, and Woman on the Edge of Time.......................................61 Population and Economy.....................................................................................63 Perception, Community, and Ecocentric Living .................................................70 Deep Ecology and the Dys(eco)topian Visions of John Brunner...............................77 Stand on Zanzibar................................................................................................79 The Sheep Look Up..............................................................................................85 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................94 5 ECOFEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION .......................................................................96 Negotiating Ecofeminist Territories I: Essentialism and the Ecological Conscience of Woman ............................................................................................98 The Wanderground............................................................................................105 v Always Coming Home .......................................................................................110 A Door Into Ocean ............................................................................................118 Negotiating Ecofeminist Territories II: Social Constructionist Ecofeminism and the Limits of Essentialism.....................................................................................123 Conclusion ................................................................................................................135 6 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICALLY CONSCIOUS POLITICAL ECONOMY: ECOSOCIALIST REFLECTIONS ..........................................................................137 Ecosocialism.............................................................................................................139 The Space Merchants................................................................................................145 The Word for World is Forest...................................................................................152 The Mars Trilogy and the Eco-Economy..................................................................158 Conclusion ................................................................................................................167 7 CONCLUSION: FROM FICTION TO ACTION...................................................168 LIST OF REFERENCES.................................................................................................172 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...........................................................................................182 vi Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy SCIENCE FICTION AND THE ECOLOGICAL CONSCIENCE By Eric Otto May 2006 Chair: Andrew Gordon Major Department: English Central to early environmentalist Aldo Leopold’s thinking, the ecological conscience leads individuals, institutions, and societies to understand human existence as a part of ecosystemic integrity—rather than apart from it—and to behave accordingly. An ecocritical literary study, this dissertation observes multiple expressions of this ecological conscience in several works of science fiction (SF). Various philosophical and theoretical insights into why modern culture lacks an ecological conscience emerged with Twentieth-Century environmentalism, including the science of ecology itself, deep ecology, ecofeminism, and ecosocialism. The chapters of this study locate narrative efforts in SF to perform the ecocritical, conscience-building work of environmental philosophy and theory. For example, George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides (1949) asserts the essential animality of the human species, challenging the human/nature dichotomy so central to modern ideologies. Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)—a work of ecotopian fiction—speculates on many of the cultural changes advocated by deep ecology, an environmental philosophy critical of Western civilization’s human- vii centeredness. Joan Slonczewski’s A Door Into Ocean (1986) relates the oppression of nature by humans to the oppression of women by men, but turns a critical eye toward ecofeminist understandings that are too essentialist. And Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (1993, 1994, 1996) narrates the possibility of an eco-economy, an ecologically sustainable economic system that eschews destructive capitalist economic paradigms. Ultimately, this dissertation shows that science fiction is actively engaged in ecological work, in a “transformative politics” that operates on the conceptual level to encourage an ecological conscience that in the end will manifest itself in revised human actions. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The science fiction (SF) scholar Carl Freedman writes in his book Critical Theory and Science Fiction, “I do believe that both critical theory and science fiction have the potential to play a role in the liberation of humanity from oppression” (xx). “[U]nswervingly oppositional,” critical theory invigorates liberatory consciousness because it challenges in so many ways hegemonic intellectual, social, and political constructs (8). Marxist theory opposes capitalist structures; psychoanalytic theory counters simplified models of knowledge; poststructuralism questions the totalizing impulses of theory itself; and feminist theory targets patriarchal social paradigms. To exercise critical theory is thus to intervene in dominant modes of thinking and being and to challenge what is inherently limiting, oppressive, or dangerous in these modes. If theory “constantly shows that things are not what they seem to be and that things need not eternally be as they are,” as Freedman observes, then by its generic nature science fiction is the literature of critical interrogation (8). As Brooks Landon shows, science fiction resists concrete definitions; but, he admits, “we have a pretty good idea of the kinds of territory it covers and the kinds of experiences we can expect in those territories” (32). Science fiction territories include considering how science and technology affect humanity, focusing on affairs more significant than the fate of one individual or community, and speculating on conceptual innovations that challenge traditional constructs of knowledge and being (31-33). Most importantly, science fiction is about problems of the now and encourages critical reflection on these problems. As 1 2 such, SF performs in narrative critical theory’s revisionary and oppositional speculations, ultimately contemplating the result of potential changes in the ideological status quo for a better human existence
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